Nellore: The state government is actively considering a proposal to hand over the construction of ho-uses sanctioned by the Union government under the Housing for All (HFA) scheme to the Confederation of Real Est-ate Developers Association of India (CREDAI).
This move to have CREDAI help build quality houses within a fixed time frame perhaps comes in the wake of the higher authorities in AP having found many shortcomings in the Indiramma Housing Scheme, with its poor construction quality and slow pace of progress.
The Union government had sanctioned 1,92,000 houses for AP under the HFA scheme. There are 1,050 buil-ders under the umbrella of CREDAI in 16 cities in AP who agreed to build the houses after forming consortiums.
State government authorities held several rounds of talks with the representatives of CRE-DAI on issues such as, using prefabricated material.
The AP chapter of the organisation has cited a rate of Rs 1,867 per sq ft, which includes the cost of the land -- Rs 167 per sq ft -- besides taxes to the extent of '200 on construction material, which will go to the government.
“The cost can be brought down further if the government waives sales tax on building materials,” said P. Raja-sekhar, national executive committee member of CREDAI and vice-president of the AP wing, who said that their organisation was ready to take up the project as part of social responsibility as there was hardly any profit margin in it.
He said that they have inspected units using prefabricated technology in Hyderabad and Mumbai to select the be-st among the ones available. He did not rule out the possibility of importing the latest technology in prefabricated material if the government allowed duty free imports.
He further said that district authorities in Chittoor had made project director of housing Mr Venkat Reddy the nodal officer to negotiate with builders on speeding up the project.
Project director of housing in Nellore Mr N. Ramachandra Reddy said that they were also holding talks with the local unit of CREDAI.
According to the housing officials, 20,681 houses had been sanctioned for the civic bodies in Nellore district and 8,156 houses for Chittoor under the HFA scheme.
